Issues Associated with PDS System in India
- Identification of beneficiaries: Studies have shown that targeting mechanisms such as TPDS can lead to large inclusion and exclusion errors. This means that eligible beneficiaries will not receive food and eligible recipients will receive undue benefits. A group of experts established in 2009 estimated that SBR suffered from an exclusion error of nearly 61% and a beneficiary inclusion error of 25%. Misclassifying the poor as non-poor and vice versa.
- Leakage of food grains: (Leaks in transit + FPS owner hints) TPDS suffers from large leaks of food grains during transit to stores and open markets. In the TPDS assessment, the former planning committee found a 36% leak of rice and wheat PDS at the criminality level.
- The issue with procurement: Permanent purchases, i.e. if all incoming grains are allowed even if the buffer stock is full, there will be a shortage in the open market.
- Issues with storage: A performance audit conducted by CAG revealed a serious shortage of public storage. The lack of adequate covered storage space is a problem given the growing purchases and rotting food grains.
- The provision of the Minimum Support Price (MPP) discourages crop diversification by encouraging farmers to convert their land from fodder grains consumed by the poor to rice and wheat.
- Environmental issues: An overemphasis on achieving self-sufficiency and surplus crops, which require large amounts of water, has proven to be environmentally unsustainable. Buying states such as Punjab and Haryana are experiencing environmental stresses, including rapid groundwater depletion and soil and water degradation due to fertilizer abuse. Rice cultivation in northwestern India was found to reduce the water table by 33 cm per year during 2002-08.
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What is Public Distribution System?
The Public Distribution System (PDS) is India’s food security system, which has evolved into affordable food distribution and emergency management system. Distribute food and nonfood items that subsidize the poor in India. The project began in June 1947. Over the years, PDSs have become an important part of the country’s government food control policies. PDSs are complementary in nature and are not intended to satisfy the needs of any household or part of the community for the goods distributed accordingly. PDS has helped establish socio-economic equity by alleviating hunger, malnutrition, and anemia among the poorest of the poor, BPL citizens, women, and children. Using ICT to reduce contact points further increases the efficiency of PDS.
Public Distribution System
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